The Lake District: A Wild Year

The wildest parts of the British landscape seem timeless.

But, in fact, they are constantly changing.

The cycle of winter, spring, summer and autumn...

..give rhythm to every year.

The turning of the year brings new life.

New beginnings after the dark days.

Each season bringing its own challenges and opportunities.

The mountainous landscape here in the Lake District has been

transformed by the elements...

..by the glaciers of the last ice age...

..and, more recently, by the hand of mankind.

On whatever scale,

there are few places in Britain

where change is more dramatic

and important than here.

Many changes pass almost unnoticed.

But by seeing hours, days, even months

compressed into a few seconds,

these changes can now be revealed.

And by charting the key events in the calendar

through each of the seasons...

..it's possible to uncover a new and unique perspective...

..on life's journey through our...

DEER BELLOWS

..restless year.

A chilly April dawn on Millbeck Farm in the Lake District.

Like all the traditional farmers here,

for Eric Taylforth the yearly cycle has begun.

For a shepherd and his dog, spring is the busiest of times.

Right now, flocks of pregnant Herdwick sheep

are returning from high up on the mountains

down into the sheltered valleys.

SHEEP BLEAT

They come back down here

to give birth.

Lambing is one of the fixed points in the Lake District calendar.

For generations, a key annual marker.

Herdwicks start their life almost completely black.

But as they get older, their coats get paler and paler.

This experienced ewe is one of the oldest on the farm.

For as long as people can remember,

Herdwicks have been the livelihood of the Lake District.

The local community depended entirely on the life cycle

of these sheep.

The first unsteady steps of this lamb

mark that the traditional Lake District year has begun.

Before long, over 38,000 Herdwick ewes

will have given birth in the valleys.

Although winter is slower to release its grip here

compared to much of the country,

the snow does melt away...

eventually.

The warming temperatures bring welcome colour

back to the hills and valleys.

Trees, like these oaks,

are transformed from bare branches to a canopy of green

in just a few weeks.

For the plants and animals,

springtime is also the start of their yearly cycle.

The Lake District finally shakes off the shackles of winter.

In the high country, the rivers and streams crisscrossing the fells are

filled with water from the melting snow.

Just what one faithful Lake District resident has been waiting for.

Dippers are particularly at home

amongst the Lake District's fast-flowing streams.

Generation after generation of dippers

return to the same nest site every spring.

Some sites have been in continuous use for more than 100 years.

Dippers dive into the icy water

to pluck the larvae of caddisflies from the riverbed.

The dippers shake off the larva's protective jacket

to get to the juicy grub inside.

It won't be long before they'll be feeding them

to a nest full of chicks.

As April turns to May,

this hillside above Grasmere is transformed.

As regular as clockwork,

one of our favourite flowers bursts into life.

Bluebells are able to flower this early

because they can draw on energy stored in their bulbs.

It's very unusual to find bluebells away from the shelter of woodland.

They can only thrive here in the open because later in the year

there'll be a blanket of bracken

to protect them from the heat of the summer.

But just now, dealing with the regular downpours

is a rather more pressing problem.

THUNDER RUMBLES

With the springtime showers comes the first trickle of tourists.

Few spots are busier than here on Windermere.

Although perhaps because the boats offer temporary shelter

from the elements.

Every year over 16 million people come to enjoy the Lake District,

whatever the weather.

The fells give visitors the chance to get away from it all,

whether that's for a weekend in a remote mountain hideaway,

or a rush to a sheltered picnic spot before it rains.

Again.

In gardens all across the Lakes

there's a sense of urgency to get the year's seeds and bulbs planted.

The growing season here is short.

This is the garden at Hilltop Farm.

The same garden where a famous rabbit once had his adventures.

And it was home to a woman who was not only Peter Rabbit's creator,

but one of the region's most influential residents.

Beatrix Potter.

She used the fortune from her literary success to buy up

thousands of acres of farmland

and fells all over the Lakes in order to preserve the

Lake District's traditional way of life.

It's one reason why the landscape, and her garden,

still looks much as she left it.

With the planting finished just in time,

her garden will soon undergo its annual transformation.

ENGINE STARTS

But there is one plant that is

already growing at a furious pace.

And that means extra work for someone.

There's been a church in Hawkshead for over 800 years.

For the groundsman the task has always been the same.

The first cut of the year is a springtime ritual,

but there'll be many, many more days with the mower to come.

As spring begins to give way to summer,

the water in the Lakes begins to warm...

..a little.

This is the only excuse some people need.

Here on Windermere it's time for the largest

outdoor swimming event in Europe.

Each year around 10,000 people take the plunge.

It's fast becoming a brand-new Lake District tradition.

Some revel in a gruelling four-hour swim.

And some probably wish they were back on dry land.

Back on Millbeck Farm and another important date in the calendar.

After two months in the valleys

the Herdwicks have grazed the pasture to the ground.

It's time for Eric to send the lambs and their mothers

up onto the fells to find fresh grass.

For the youngsters this'll be their first time on the rugged peaks.

But they'll be guided by the experienced ewes.

The land on the high fells is completely open

with no walls to keep them from straying or getting lost.

But by always releasing the flock up this same valley at the same time,

generation after generation,

the sheep are able to remember their own way around and so,

how to get back to this valley when the time comes to return.

It's a system known as hefting,

only practised by traditional hill farmers.

With the sheep on their way,

the walls that enclose the lowland fields

can receive some well overdue care and attention.

They're as much a part of the landscape

as the hills themselves.

Maintaining the walls is not a job for the faint-hearted.

They run for hundreds of miles.

On Millbeck Farm the task falls to David Birkett.

He has spent most of his life building and rebuilding

the walls here.

With no mortar to hold the rocks together,

building a dry stone wall takes a huge amount of skill and experience.

Many of the walls will have been repaired and rebuilt

again and again for hundreds of years,

using exactly the same techniques.

And exactly the same stones.

They're built with an outer layer of larger stones on each side,

a core of smaller stones in the centre

and, finally, a line of cam stones along the top.

Once the stones have weathered a little

it's hard to know which bits David has repaired.

He's one of the best in the world.

He even spends two weeks a year building walls

at the Chelsea Flower Show.

These walls are more than just boundaries.

They create an ecosystem of their own.

In the summer heat slugs search for somewhere shady

to escape the sun.

A damp cranny to hide in during the day.

Deep inside the walls they have the perfect place not only to shelter,

but to lay their eggs.

Slug eggs can lay dormant for months, or even years,

if conditions are not right.

But here the wall and the damp soil keeps them moist and protected.

In only four weeks the embryos can develop from just a few cells

into perfectly formed baby slugs.

Soon it's time to hatch.

Although some seem reluctant to leave the protection of their eggs.

Finally they slither off to feed

and eventually start a new generation of their own.

But they aren't the only ones that make their home amongst the stones.

As the sun gets higher, the shadows retreat,

and the wall is bathed in summer sunshine.

This now brings out creatures that bask in the heat.

Jumping spiders just a few millimetres long.

The walls give these fearsome, if tiny, predators

the perfect hunting ground.

They can jump up to 50 times their own body length.

That's the equivalent of a person jumping over Big Ben.

After they've eaten their prey,

they can slink back into the shadows

to await their next victim.

It's mid-July and Millbeck Farm is empty.

Yet Eric is preparing for one of the busiest days of the year.

The sheep have been peacefully grazing on the mountains

above the farm for weeks.

But the peace is about to be broken.

Every July shepherds from up and down the valley

leave their own farms to help their neighbours.

They head up to the fell.

The only way is on foot.

The shepherds and their dogs

are in position.

It's a stand-off.

Until...

SHEEP BLEATS

Finally...the annual summer herding...

..begins.

FARMER WHISTLES

It's not going to be easy.

Eric's 2,000 ewes and their growing lambs are spread

across hundreds of acres high on the fells.

And there are cliffs, rocks,

streams and countless places for the sheep to hide.

If they panic them, the sheep and their lambs could easily get hurt.

Shepherds have to find them all

and guide them safely off the mountain.

For hundreds of years,

shepherds have used this natural bowl

as a place to gather the flock together.

The sheep are then carefully driven down the steep paths

to the farm below.

This is a rare opportunity to check and sort the sheep.

Some are now accomplished climbers.

The main reason they're bought down at this time, each summer...

..is to be sheared.

Some of the shearers can clip 300 sheep in a day.

It's backbreaking work.

The wool is extremely hard wearing.

It was once prized for making the finest quality carpets.

Sadly, it's much less in demand today.

The sheep still have to be clipped once a year

or their fleece would eventually grow so heavy,

they wouldn't be able to walk.

It takes days to get through the whole flock.

After they've been sheared,

the slightly bewildered sheep head back up the fells,

minus their winter coats.

With luck the weather will stay fine

and the rain will hold off.

Beatrix Potter's garden at Hill Top Farm has been transformed.

The warmth of the sun not only draws

bumblebees to the colourful blooms...

..it also draws over 1,000 tourists

every day to this famous place.

Peter the gardener has his work cut out just keeping

the plants in check, and the garden looking

just as Beatrix Potter first planned it over 100 years ago.

But there are some extra rewards for his efforts.

In the summer, the grass always seems to need cutting.

It's time to get the mower out...

again.

On Millbeck Farm, it's also time for the grass to be cut and baled.

It'll provide extra food for the sheep over the winter.

But this is the Lake District and it's a race against time

to beat the showers.

If the weather's dry,

the farmers will work round the clock

and get the grass harvested in time.

All over the Lake District,

the wildlife is busying itself in the summer sunshine.

There's no rest for David Birkett, either.

He's returned to Millbeck Farm but this time it's not the walls

that need his attention.

David is one of the most respected climbers in the world,

and grew up perfecting more and more challenging routes

across the rocky peaks.

There are reports of a climber who's been stuck up here for days.

And David is the one person with enough local knowledge

to attempt a rescue.

As he edges down the rock face, he sees the problem.

It's one of Eric's sheep.

Sheep have an unfortunate tendency

to get stuck on ledges like this.

David gets calls from all over the valley

to come and gently lower them to a safer spot.

David has rescued nearly 800 sheep over the years

And all out of the kindness of his heart.

With the arrival of August,

the year reaches another milestone

in the calendar -

the peak of the tourist season.

Nowadays, tourism has replaced sheep farming as the lifeblood

of the Lake District.

At the busiest times over 1,000 people an hour trek up and down

the paths that run through Millbeck Farm.

There are also less energetic excursions.

There have been pleasure cruises on Windermere since the 1840s.

This boat is over 125 years old.

The Lake District has both the longest and the deepest lakes

in England and Windermere is the biggest of them all.

A business which started with just one steamer

now carries as many as 10,000 tourists a day,

constantly ferried up and down the 10.5-mile stretch of water.

The boats sail every day except Christmas Day

and that adds up to over 1.5 million paying passengers a year.

Dogs, though, travel for free.

For tourists, a high summer boat trip may offer a day of calm

to escape the busy year.

But for many of the locals, the next day will bring anything but calm.

It's the climax of months of anxious preparation.

Not mowing the grass...

..but the highlight in the village calendar.

The planning, growing and hard work has all come down

to this one single day.

First held in 1871,

this is the 132nd Rusland Show.

It's a traditional countryside celebration

and there is fierce competition.

With it comes the unenviable task

of deciding who takes home the coveted best-in-show.

Finally, a local favourite...

CHUCKLES ..the egg-throwing competition.

In Rusland, summer isn't a summer until you have egg on your face.

Soon, it's all over but the competitors will already be planning

for the 133rd Rusland Show.

Although summer is coming to an end,

many plants are still thriving

in the long, warm days.

These touch-me-not balsam

have sprung up to cover the woodland floor.

Each night, the leaves go limp as the balsam exudes

any excess moisture.

In the waterlogged soils of the Lake District,

this is a handy adaptation.

Soon, their blooms unfurl.

As the petals of these strange shaped flowers drop off,

seed pods begin to form.

These pods are the favourite food

of the Netted Carpet moth caterpillar.

Although it was once thought to be extinct,

the Netted Carpet moth survives here in the Lake District,

its last remaining stronghold.

Touch-me-not balsam is their only source of food.

These plants have a surprise in store...

their seed heads...

..explode.

It's how they became known as touch-me-not.

But nobody told the caterpillars this!

The caterpillars have no warning when these little bombs go off.

It's not just seeds that get hurled across the forest floor.

Autumn is just around the corner.

Amongst the grazing sheep on the fells,

something other than grass

is pushing its way up out of the ground.

These brightly coloured mushrooms are called waxcaps.

They come in a huge variety of colours and grow particularly well

in the open grasslands of the Lake District fells.

However, if the surrounding grass gets too tall,

then the fungi can't spread their spores,

so the colony won't be able to reproduce.

But they have an ally...

..the Herdwick sheep.

They avoid eating the mushrooms and by continually trimming the grass,

they unwittingly secure the next generation of waxcaps.

The cool misty mornings frame the changing colours

of autumn.

The animals are preparing for the approaching cold.

The Lake District is one of the few places in England

where red squirrels thrive.

Now is the time to urgently collect food...

..from wherever they can find it.

At the church, the colder weather means the grass

has finally stopped growing

and the groundsman can take a well-earned break.

For the squirrels, however, there will be no such rest.

The food they store now will see the squirrels through the winter...

..provided they remember where they've left it.

It'll be a long time till spring.

The nights are beginning to draw in.

Come midwinter, the Lake District will have nearly an hour longer

of darkness than the south.

The longer nights are welcomed with traditions that go back centuries.

We retreat to the warmth of home, pub and hearth.

While outside, the long hours of darkness tick by.

Yet, high up on the fells,

it's the busiest time of year for one group of animals.

For these red deer stags, the restless year is far from over.

Competing calls signal their claim to a patch of the fell.

And the females within it.

They use the shape of the valleys to amplify the sound of their roaring.

The louder and deeper, the more females they will attract.

Their roars also herald the unforgiving winter weather

that will inevitably follow.

This winter, however, the Lake District will be battered

by the elements like never before.

Water has always defined the Lake District.

And never more so than this year.

Torrential rain begins to fall

and it shows no sign of stopping.

Rivers swell, crashing off the fells

and through the valleys.

This waterfall was home to a family of dippers in the spring.

Now their nesting site has been completely destroyed.

The lakes themselves simply can't contain all this water.

This isn't just any storm.

Over a foot of rain falls in less than 24 hours,

the most ever recorded in the UK.

Next morning, the people of the Lake District wake up

to unprecedented devastation.

'This is beyond anything even I can recall

'and around our neck of the woods, so many roads under water there.'

'People I've been talking to who've lived there all their lives have

'never seen it at this level before.

'It's incredible weather. We've not seen anything like this and,

'you know, this is Cumbria. We are used to challenging weather.'

Town and countryside alike have been overwhelmed

by the floodwaters.

This is Glenridding, one of the worst affected villages.

But all around, the people of the Lake District refuse to be beaten.

Machinery and workmen arrive from a nearby work site,

stopping what they've been doing to come to the rescue

of this and other isolated communities.

The process will take months but when the floodwaters subside,

the people of the Lake District will rebuild.

Winter weather has always hit the Lake District hard.

Snowstorms can strike without warning,

transforming the landscape overnight.

Blizzards can completely obscure the mountaintops.

Yet, every day, someone must climb this,

one of the highest peaks in the Lake District -

Helvellyn.

It's the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest every fortnight.

These mountains claim several lives each year.

Even on a sunny day, the temperature can struggle to get above freezing.

And on a bad day, can drop to minus 16.

These polar conditions keep everyone but the most intrepid away.

But day after day a mountaineer heads to Helvellyn's summit.

It's only at the top that critical information about weather and snow

conditions can be measured.

Not least to assess the risk of avalanche.

The reports are vital to safeguarding the lives of anyone

who ventures here in the winter.

As December draws to a close, the valleys, too,

are covered in a white blanket.

On Windermere, the boats sail one last time

before they and their crews

take their one day off in the year.

And across the land, communities gather to celebrate Christmas.

As the New Year begins, it brings the promise of new life,

even in the bleakest of midwinters.

With the returning sun, slowly the thaw begins.

And the welcome markers of the new season start to appear again.

Before you know it, even the tourists are returning,

eager to board the waiting pleasure boats.

And perhaps the most important of all,

the traditional start of the Lake District year.

The sheep return from the fells,

ready for lambing.

Here in the Lake District,

the year has come full circle.

Wherever we live,

the passing of the seasons...

..the turning of the pages of the calendar,

and the rhythms of the restless year...

..affect us all.